Let­ter to the ed­i­tor

I was shocked to see the in­clu­sion of a full-page ad en­cour­ag­ing a no vote in the postal plebiscite on same sex mar­riage in the School News sec­tion of the Septem­ber 2017 edi­tion of The Gal­ston, Glenorie and Hills Ru­ral Com­mu­nity News.

At­tempts to align con­cerns about changes to the mar­riage act with school chil­dren is not only mis­lead­ing but com­pletely mis­in­formed. Ad­di­tion­ally, the tele­vi­sion ad pro­duced by the same or­gan­i­sa­tion that made the print ad was dis­cred­ited within the first 24 hours af­ter be­ing re­leased, cre­at­ing con­cern about the va­lid­ity and rel­e­vance of the print ad.

As a les­bian par­ent rais­ing two young chil­dren within this com­mu­nity, I am dis­ap­pointed with your de­ci­sion to in­clude this ad, par­tic­u­larly in the School News sec­tion, as it does noth­ing but at­tempt to con­fuse and di­vide what I know to be a strong and sup­port­ive lo­cal com­mu­nity.

My part­ner and I have been to­gether since 1995 and have had to fight for fair­ness and equal­ity for 22 years. We've fought for each other, we've fought for our chil­dren, we've fought for our rights and for those of oth­ers. It is of­ten a daily bat­tle - need­ing to make reg­u­lar choices about stand­ing up, be­ing heard and re­fus­ing to ac­cept that we are less than equal.

It is un­fair and un­ac­cept­able to still be fight­ing for equal­ity in 2017. How­ever, we will con­tinue un­til ev­ery­one in the com­mu­nity has equal rights. We each have the chance to be part of a sig­nif­i­cant change that will im­pact us, our chil­dren and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to come - let's do some­thing to be proud of.